how to conver to PAL

B

booggerg2

Well-known member
Hi we just finished shooting a music video using NTSC HVX cams. The final video is rendered down to a DVCPROHD 720p quicktime file.

Some networks in India are interested in the video and they want a copy on BETA SP. Thus I need to convert our DVCPROHD 720/60P footage to SD PAL. How can this be done? I assume I would need to find a dubbing house somewhere in Chicago. Woud the easiest way to go about this is to render the HD video to a PAL MPEG2 and burn it onto a DVD and take that to the dubbing house?

Also, a general question regarding. NTSC/PAL, I thought the whole difference between NTSC and PAL applied to SD signals - with their different frame size and fields/sec specs. How is this distinction still applicable in the HD world?

many thanks!
Yang
 
The distinction is still applicable in that it is 60hz vs. 50hz. And that the framerates are different. 50 vs. 60 or 25 vs 30/24, etc.

The quick and dirty way to do it is to just do it from within your NLE, but you probably shouldn't expect great results. You can either render to pal, or whatever. Or you can just change the framerate specs to 50i/50p/25p... whatever.

I think after effects has plugin's that can do a conversion of sorts for you that would be a bit better results than the above mentioned way.

A more expensive way would be to buy a conversion program. DVFilm (makers of Raylight) offers a program called Atlantis. It is like 150 bucks or something. You might hit up usermember mvb. He is the owner of Raylight and is a member of this board. Don't know anything about the quality of the results.
http://www.dvfilm.com/atlantis/

And, of course, a google search should result in a plethora of other conversion programs that you can compare and read reviews, etc. to find the one that best suits your needs.

And then probably the highest quality conversion, and most expensive way to get it done, would be to pay a company to do it for you.

That's about all I can offer up on this question. Hope it gives you some direction

Jason
 
Thanks for the info. If I ask a conversion house to do the PAL conversion, they would still need a NTSC source... I should probably downconvert my HD video to NTSC in FCP right? Or can the best quality be acheieve only by the conversion house in which case I should give them the RAW HD Quicktime file?
 
AS you're working on Mac FCP you can do various conversion, depends on you facility house requirements, but if they accept a QT file you can use Compressor that has preset for standard Conversion, or you can use Jes Deinterlacer that's what we use to do the opposite Pal to Ntsc and it's freeware !! It's perfect to make Ntsc/Pal dvd or QT yuv file for transfer to beta or digibeta.
But if they don't accept (or cost more...) a QT File, the best way is that you downconvert to Ntsc SD and then transfer to digibeta Ntsc.
If instead they accept HD files just give them yours!
Here, it cost more to transfer a QT file to Ntsc 'cause the facility ask us to pay for the use of their Avid system plus the Conversion, so usually we transfer our downconverted HD to a DVCPro 50 SD Pal tape and give it to them for the comversion.

Last: whatever solution you'll choose keep an eye on the Color conversion as Ntsc has that Hue regulation that Pal doesn't!!

rap
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top